Health communication is an epidemiological determinant: Public health implications for COVID-19 and future crises management

• Published in: Health promotion perspectives 2022-01, Vol.12 (3), p.226-228
• Main Author: Rovetta, Alessandro
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Communication; Community involvement; Community participation; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 vaccines; Epidemics; Epidemiology; False information; Human error; Immunization; Information management; News; Pandemics; Public health; Risk communication; Scientists; Social networks; Vaccination; Viral diseases
• ISSN: 2228-6497; 2228-6497
• DOI: 10.34172/hpp.2022.28

Dear Editor, The World Health Organization (WHO) has defined COVID-19 as the most severe health emergency in history.1 Nonetheless, a primary epidemiological aspect is too often underestimated: a pandemic consists not only of a viral epidemic but also of an information epidemic.2 The latter is called "infodemic," which is an overabundance of both correct and incorrect information.3,4 The damage of incorrect information (or dis-misinformation) was evident and striking during the COVID-19 crisis, ranging from the poisoning of US citizens due to the fake medical news uttered by President Donald Trump to the severe vaccination hesitancy due to the conspiracy hypotheses circulated on the web also thanks to some known scientists as the Nobel laureate Luc Montagnier.2-5 Despite much has been done by health authorities to counter it,6 the strategies adopted have often proved inadequate.7 In this regard, it should be emphasized that risk communication and community engagement are subject to significant challenges such as distrust in government, cultural, social, and religious resistance, and inertia.8 Besides, the variety of pathways, channels, and methods of communication - including mass and social media, online sharing platforms, and messaging apps - have made the flow of health information uncontrollable.9 Nevertheless, this editorial primary focuses on a more subtle aspect of the matter, i.e., the involuntary sharing of unreliable news (we call it "type 1 misinformation" or "T1M") and the sharing of truthful news with a negative communicative outcome (we call it "type 2 misinformation" or "T2M"). According to the above points and the WHO suggestions,2,3 it is clear that no information campaign alone can counteract the infodemic phenomenon. [...]we must insist on creating resilience to dis/misinformation and information management abilities in the lay public. [...]it is equally clear that expert communicators must perform communication and that scientists should only mediate the content to be communicated. [...]communication, understood as a combination of dissemination and reception of information, is one of the main epidemiological factors since it determines the population's behavior.